Low-carbon strategy and tourism development

ABSTRACTThe ability of a low-carbon strategy to promote tourism development is critical to achieving economic development and environmental protection. Taking China's low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this study evaluates the low-carbon strategy's effect on tourism development by adopting the difference-in-difference method with 275 cities'panel data from 2002 to 2019. The results verify that tourism has significantly developed, driven by the LCCP policy, and this finding is robust even after multiple tests. Mechanism and heterogeneity analyses show that LCCP policy drives tourism development by improving air quality, promoting industrial structure upgrading, and enhancing green technology innovation. Additionally, the pilot construction has a positive spatial spillover impact on the tourism industry in surrounding cities, reflecting the demonstration effect of the pilot city on the neighbouring cities.KEYWORDS: Low-carbon city pilot policytourism developmentdifference-in-differencespatial spillover Data availability statementData will be made available on request.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 For information on LCCP policy, please visit https://www.ndrc.gov.cn.2 Please check Surface PM2.5 | Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group | Washington University in St. Louis (wustl.edu).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Youth Foundation Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education [grant number 21YJCZH012].